Henry Wilson

ぬ read "nu"

It appears to be a half-hearted attempted at copying some Kaneie tsuba. There seems to a pine tree and mountains with a man leading a an ox.

I would dare to say that the description on the Tenbo site is wrong and the design is a mon. Have a look here. Second and third line down: http://eps.crest-Japan.net/natural/index_en.php

I think the sukashi on the ko Kinko is a family mon. Suhama 州浜 or "sand beach" is very different and is more of a typical kogai hitsuana shape. Example of the shape can be found here: http://www.nihonto.com/5.1.09.html I love the second one. I eyed-balled it many a time on Yamabushi antiques. Nearly bought it once too.

:lol: Thanks Peter. It took four weeks for Christmas cards to arrive from Belfast so..... You can think about me munching my sushi, when you are having your fry..... http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=h ... 29,r:1,s:0

I am from Northern Ireland Belfast, but live in Tokyo.... Not much use, so sorry. I could murder a soda farl or a bit of potato bread though.

What makes you think this?

Nagamitsu

Who are in fact, Ebisu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebisu_%28mythology%29 And Daikoku. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daikoku#Ma ... a_in_Japan

Personally I would avoid uchiko altogether and just use a micro fibre cloth. Uchiko is abrasive and will dull the new polish quickly.

Somebody Buy it Now!

Glad you are enjoying yourself. My advice would be to leave them because as you say nothing is selling. Maybe by something that you like with the intention of hanging on to it. At Yasukuni Shrine make sure you go around the back to the duck pond. To the right is the old sword factory where Yasunkuni swords were forged.

Living in Japan and generally working in Yen those tsuba are way over priced. They remind me of the stuff that are available at weekend flea markets. I would definitely avoid them at all costs. If you want to get a nice tsuba on a budget try here: http://www.finesword.co.jp/ Scroll down a bit. The are located in Ginza which is quite central. Cheers all and hope the 二日酔い is not biting too much...

Kagamishi it is. Here is some more information from Jim Gilbert. "Kagamishi Tsuba Kagamishi tsuba are cast from a bronze alloy. The name suggests that they are the work of mirror makers, but the work is usually rather different from what is seen on mirrors. The dating of these pieces ranges from Kamakura to Muromachi. Kagamishi tsuba are seen with regular geometric designs and with more organic motifs. There are not many examples to study in the US. It would be worthwhile to compare an analysis of the metal of Kagamishi tsuba with that of mirrors from the same time period." This tsuba is a bit special as it has papers from the NBTHK which papers it to Ko Kagamishi as opposed to plain Kagamishi. This makes it quite old and is dated to around the late Nanbokucho to early Muromachi period. I don't think it is a modified mirror, unlike the one below, because both sides are pretty much identical and does not look like an old mirror anyway. The two holes in the seppa dai were probably made to hold seppa spacers to the tsuba. The tsuba is covered in a coat of what appears to be old lacquer and there is a beautiful brown tinge to it. And finally a later Kagamishi tsuba to compare. This one is mid to late Muromachi and while charming, does not have the same sense of age as the Ko Kagamishi. Take care all.

Happy Holidays to everyone. Especially Brian for his hard work. Here is me with my present. Can anyone tell what it is?

The bar could be a mon. The two holes could be the eyes of the butterfly that I can see so clearly :D

To help read the papers this site might be of help: http://www.nihontocraft.com/japanese_sword_papers.html

I have just had time to see the movie and like everyone else has said, it is out standing and very interesting. I have always wondered about inlay and always wished to see how it is done as well as the application of a patina and the mercury guilding technique for gold. In fact the whole show was an complete eye opener as I also recall how the base metal was made.... Well done Ford.

A fun website. http://iganinja.jp/en/about/ninja.html

Ninja I can't help thinking that this topic is being over thought. It could be as simple as people long ago were born into a certain position in life. They were expected to behave, dress, speak, live, eat, work as was dictated by their social position of birth. Not doing these things as dictated would have been regarded as disrespectful to their ancestors and would have flown in the face of any common sense. The ninja new this and were willing to con and exploit situations. I would imagine that a ninja would have probably dressed as the most unobvious person, such as lowly uneducated farmer and did his or her best to act as a lowly farmer was expected to and would have used this charde to open a situation. They therefore would have been able to use a simple farm implement as a weapon just as easily as a sword. Basically they were very well train con men. Because of this alternative life style I would not be surprised if the ninja came from a very contentious class of people who were known as Eta. In a Buddhist society they were lumbered with the task of working with dead animals so from what I gather were doomed anyway. I can't swallow a comparison between navy seals and the SAS. By the way in the KTK catalog 6 (if you can find it) there is a tsuba that some people believe might have ninja connections.

Thanks Jason How do I turn down the security settings on Mozilla Firefox? I can't find anything that alters security level in options.

I still get logged out all the time on my home computer, even if I check the log me in automatically button. I think it is a problem related to my machine though, but hope not.

What's Vista?

This thread has some advice: http://www.nihontomessageboard.com/nmb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=8915&sid=37daa4fdf2f2cbe953dee6dd753f1b8b And if you are looking for a Christmas present http://www.nihontomessageboard.com/nmb/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7167&sid=37daa4fdf2f2cbe953dee6dd753f1b8b http://www.nihontomessageboard.com/nmb/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=9128&sid=37daa4fdf2f2cbe953dee6dd753f1b8b http://www.nihontomessageboard.com/nmb/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=9123&sid=37daa4fdf2f2cbe953dee6dd753f1b8b

This Kanayama tsuba of mine is probably of two Lotus leaves facing each other. Turn it 90 degs and it is more obvious. viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8011&p=65424&hilit=kanayama#p65424